Jay Leno: Laughing Life Up

Success in entertainment today is often meteoric - a sudden leap into the spotlight after years of looking for just the right ``hook.`` A personality is established and people sit up and take notice.

Often the play of light is only a temporary situation.

At 35, Jay Leno enjoys his life and his career just the way they are. Though he savors his marked rise as one of America`s most refreshing young comedians, he is cautious.

In fact, Leno has been around for more than a decade, having played clubs in Boston (his hometown), New York and Los Angeles and then working as an opening act for Perry Como, Tom Jones, Johnny Mathis and John Denver.

Leno`s national following began to snowball more recently, thanks to his frequent appearances (about 30 to date) on NBC-TV`s popular show Late Night with David Letterman.

Letterman aficionados delight in the talk show host`s genuine appreciation for Leno`s bemused views of the world.

Leno describes his style as ``something a little to the left or the right`` of his personality. In other words, Leno feels he`s just an ordinary type of guy who gets weirded out from time to time by what`s going on.

Learning to be a success and surviving it is in itself the funniest side of Jay Leno and an attitude for fans to rally around.

The uninitiated in South Florida can experience Leno when he appears at Parker Playhouse Saturday night, the first bona fide stand-up comic to be booked at the Fort Lauderdale stage.

Leno doesn`t do impressions, doesn`t sing or dance and avoids the so-called convenience material - jokes about sex, drugs and racial attitudes. Leno definitely doesn`t like the ``genital jokes some comedians throw in for a reaction.``

He simply talks about the obvious: the system, the government, the headlines. He has never been one for Dolly Parton jokes either.

As the comedian picked up the telephone for this interview at the Hollywood Hills, Calif., home he shares with wife, Mavis, there was the sound of metal on metal as a wrench was dropped into a tool box. Leno then paused to exchange the echoing portable phone for one indoors.

The metal reverb resulted from the fact that Leno had been out in the yard working on one of the 12 vintage motorcycles he`s restoring. The motorcyles still take a backseat, however, to his cherished 1955 Buick Roadmaster dubbed ``Mr. Buick.``

This was the car Leno slept in when he first came to Southern California nine years ago and the vehicle that, in his best routines, gobbles up Honda Civics and Toyotas with its big-toothed grill.

Leno, taking exception to the pack, likes the pace of Hollywood.

``Oh I`m having a great time,`` chirped Leno. ``Yeh, you can lose your perceptions in Hollywood, though it is an appropriate town for hard work. I try to have a good time and look at Hollywood as a very funny place.``

Leno equates the thought processes of comedy to lifting weights: Results may not always be immediate but eventually a picture of something emerges.

``Doing comedy is like being a writer. Writers have their journalistic tricks and so do comedians. And sometimes the material jumps out at you.``

Leno loves to plant suggestions in his audience and let them fill in the blanks.

``Comedy, when you think about it, works best when it`s conservative,`` continued Leno.

A typical matter-of-fact quip is plucked from the headlines.

``I mean, it`s right there.

``I`ve been thinking of trying a joke on Letterman. I heard that John Hinckley is engaged to marry a woman who is in prison for murder. (Pause). A would-be assassin and an assassin ... I wonder how he feels about marrying a woman who`s been more successful than he has?``

Leno also believes that the essence of comedy hasn`t changed - just the interpretation.

``Comedy is probably the most consistent art form when you think about it,`` says Leno. ``If you look today at a film from the 1920s - something like Birth of a Nation - it`s so pretentious and goes on and on. But everyone still laughs at Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.``

Leno still gets his share of incredulous looks from people he meets. There`s a misconception that the purpose of stand-up comedy is as a stepping stone for something more grand.

``They say, well, you`re doing stand-up comedy now, but what do you want to eventually do?`` Leno said. ``This is what I do.``

Is he a mature comedian?

``I don`t know,`` he says. ``I tend to think of comedic ability in four categories: 1) Knowing how to do nothing; 2) Doing one thing well; 3) Doing two things well; and 4) Woody Allen. I`m currently in category two.

``Breaking in a new joke is a judgment call; it has to be used at the appropriate time,`` Leno says. ``You try it out and, if it works, you might move it up. If it`s really funny maybe you`ll open with it. The danger is to fool around with it later on. Jokes are not like music.